Ira Math­ur

“In­tim­i­da­tion be­came Pa­pa’s way of as­sert­ing his pow­er over us. Ma­ma built up an un­re­lent­ing en­durance for pain, sym­bol­ised by the scar on her fore­head. She nev­er shared her suf­fer­ing with any­one, and nev­er com­plained. Open dis­cus­sion about do­mes­tic abuse and the in­fra­struc­ture to help bat­tered women didn’t ex­ist then. Even if it did, Ma­ma wouldn’t have tak­en it. She wasn’t go­ing to live amongst strangers and leave her home. Up to the time of her death, Ma­ma didn’t have or vis­it friends. She com­mit­ted her life to her fam­i­ly.”

Ex­cerpt from Break­ing Free, A Jour­ney from Trau­ma to Em­pow­er­ment by An­gela Laquis-So­bri­an

This week’s fea­tured book, Break­ing Free on sur­viv­ing and over­com­ing trau­ma and do­mes­tic abuse with­in a fam­i­ly set­ting, is writ­ten by busi­ness­woman, a for­mer teacher and Hu­man Re­sources pro­fes­sion­al An­gela Laquis-So­bri­an.

This pow­er­ful, coura­geous, painful­ly hon­est and touch­ing mem­oir by a woman sur­viv­ing trau­ma and abuse with­in a con­ser­v­a­tive and closed com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad could serve as a road map to women through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go who suf­fer from do­mes­tic abuse.

Laquis-So­bri­an’s mem­oir, Break­ing Free: A Jour­ney from Trau­ma to Em­pow­er­ment 2022 (Prospect Press), has been de­scribed by her pub­lish­ers as the sto­ry of a “Syr­i­an/Lebanese girl who strug­gles to find her voice and stand in her truth.”

Ac­cord­ing to the pub­lish­ers, “As a Syr­i­an/Lebanese girl, born in Trinidad and To­ba­go to im­mi­grant par­ents, An­gela Laquis-So­bri­an re­counts her strug­gles through a har­row­ing child­hood blight­ed by the im­pact of al­co­holism and do­mes­tic abuse with­in a pa­tri­ar­chal house­hold. Voice­less and pow­er­less, she at­tempts to re­claim her self-worth and find her voice and iden­ti­ty as a woman with­in a cul­ture that im­posed a nar­row and un­for­giv­ing de­f­i­n­i­tion of fe­male worth at that time.

“As her jour­ney opens doors to her past, An­gela ex­plores what it’s like to grieve, and how to re­build from the trau­mat­ic events that shaped un­healthy be­liefs about her­self.

“If you’ve ever felt you’re liv­ing in a box of some­one else mak­ing if you’ve ever said ‘yes’ when your heart screamed ‘no’, won­dered why you can’t seem to break free from self-lim­it­ing be­liefs, fear and self-doubt, Break­ing Free ex­plores ways to make peace with the past, shed fa­cades and the in­ner crit­ic, and change your nar­ra­tive to­wards self-em­pow­er­ment.”

Of her mem­oir, Laquis-So­bri­an writes: “This is a col­lec­tion of my ex­pe­ri­ences record­ed over the years. There may be oth­er per­spec­tives and in­ter­pre­ta­tions of events, but these are mine, as I re­called them. I have spent most of my life record­ing my child­hood mem­oirs and writ­ing and rewrit­ing this book for over ten years. Many stepped for­ward with their own sto­ries which they need­ed to tell. I’m grate­ful for their wis­dom and in­sights. They helped me learn how our be­liefs and truths are born from the sto­ries we choose to tell our­selves. Heal­ing be­gan with my writ­ing and the ex­pres­sion of my ex­pe­ri­ences. For­give­ness came as a re­sult of the heal­ing.”

Pa­per Based Book­shop lo­cat­ed at The Nor­mandie, St Ann’s, Trinidad, which stocks Laquis-So­bri­an’s book re­viewed Break­ing Free in an In­sta­gram post: Suc­cess sto­ries of­ten soar from suf­fo­cat­ing re­al­i­ties – As An­gela Laquis-So­bri­an’s mem­oir proves in un­guard­ed re­flec­tions on her rigid Syr­i­an/Lebanese up­bring­ing.

“Born in­to a house­hold of vi­o­lence and per­fec­tion­ism, where emo­tion­al ges­tures of love were fre­quent­ly re­pressed, An­gela strove to claim her place in her fam­i­ly and broad­er so­ci­ety. Tak­ing us in­to col­lec­tive in­ti­mate con­fi­dence, the au­thor de­tails the in­tri­cate fail­ings of the moth­er-daugh­ter bond, the sti­fling ex­pec­ta­tions placed on Syr­i­an/Lebanese girls and women in T&T, and the re­demp­tive role of high­er ed­u­ca­tion in earn­ing her au­ton­o­my. Break­ing Free is for any­one who has been trapped by their cir­cum­stances, strug­gled to find a way to­wards the best ver­sion of them­selves, and at­tained it.”

Laquis-So­bri­an will be speak­ing on her book on April 30 at 4.30 pm along­side Wendy Yawch­ing and Ronald Har­ford in the AV Room, NALIS, dur­ing the Bo­cas Lit Fest (28-30 April 2023).

Pa­per Based Book­shop hosts a pop­u­lar Tea and Read­ings se­ries

Es­tab­lished in 1987, Pa­per Based Book­shop is one of the old­est book­shops in Trinidad and the on­ly one spe­cial­is­ing in Caribbean lit­er­a­ture. Cosi­ly tucked in­to the Shops at The Ho­tel Nor­mandie, St Ann’s, Pa­per Based of­fers the lat­est ti­tles and clas­sic reads in Caribbean fic­tion, po­et­ry, non-fic­tion, art and pho­tog­ra­phy, cook­books, na­ture writ­ing and oth­ers. Pa­per Based was es­tab­lished and owned by Joan Day­al, win­ner of the 2017 Bo­cas Hen­ry Swanzy Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice to Caribbean Let­ters. Pa­per Based hosts a pop­u­lar Tea and Read­ings se­ries show­cas­ing the tal­ents of emerg­ing and es­tab­lished writ­ers.